Inaugural Address of Governor Adlai E. Stevenson of Illinois: Delivered Before a Joint Session of the General Assembly of Illinois at Springfield, January 10, 1949 (Classic Reprint)
(Excerpt from Inaugural Address of Governor Adlai E. Steve...)
Excerpt from Inaugural Address of Governor Adlai E. Stevenson of Illinois: Delivered Before a Joint Session of the General Assembly of Illinois at Springfield, January 10, 1949
I cannot fail, however, to note the significance and perhaps the historical opportunity for you and me in this hour when Illinois is passing from one epoch to another exactly as it did 100 years ago.
Historians say that 1848 was a transition year in the history of Illinois. A steel plow to cut the tough sod had, at last, been invented. The reaper had come to our prairies. Plank roads had begun to lift Illinois out of the mud. The Germans and the Irish were coming. With souls, Chicago was struggling out of the swamps. A railroad was creeping westward. Illinois was emerging from the log cabin frontier era and was taking its place in the new industrial day that was breaking upon the Union.
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Something of Men I Have Known With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective (TREDITION CLASSICS)
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France As A Republic: Special Address Before The Bar Association Of Illinois (1898)
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Stephen A. Douglas: Annual Address Delivered Before the Illinois State Historical Society, Springfield, Illinois, January 31, 1908 (Classic Reprint)
(Excerpt from Stephen A. Douglas: Annual Address Delivered...)
Excerpt from Stephen A. Douglas: Annual Address Delivered Before the Illinois State Historical Society, Springfield, Illinois, January 31, 1908
When the Lecompton constitution came before the Senate, it at once encountered the formidable opposition of Mr. Douglas. In unmeasured terms he denounced it as fraudulent, as antagonistic to the wishes of the people of Kansas, and subversive of the basic principle upon which the territory had been organized. In the attitude just assumed, Mr. Douglas at once found himself in line with the Republicans, and inop position to the administration he had helped toi place in power. The breach thus created was destined to remain unhealed. Moreover, his declaration of hostility to the Lecompton constitution was the beginning of the end of years of close political affiliation with southern democratic statesmen. From that moment, Mr. Douglas lost prestige as a national leader of his party. In more than one-half of the democratic states he ceased to be regarded as a probable or even possible candidate for the presidential succession. The hostility thus engendered followed him to the Charleston convention of 1860, and throughout the exciting presi dential contest which followed. But the humiliation of defeat, brought about as he believed by personal hostility to himself, was yet in the future. In the attempted admission of Kansas under the Lecompton constitution, Mr. Douglas was triumphant over the administration and his former political associates from the south. Under what was known as the English Amendment, the obnoxious constitution was referred to the people of Kansas, and by them overwhelmingly rejected.
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Adlai Ewing Stevenson II was an American lawyer, politician, and diplomat. He is noted for his intellectual demeanor, eloquent public speaking, and promotion of progressive causes in the Democratic Party.
Background
Adlai was born on February 5, 1900 in Los Angeles, California, United States, the son of Lewis Green Stevenson, a former secretary of state for Illinois, and of Helen Louise Davis. His maternal great-grandfather, Jesse Fell, was a close friend and early supporter of Abraham Lincoln, and his paternal grandfather, Adlai E. Stevenson, was a vice-president of the United States (1893 - 1897).
In 1906 the Stevenson family returned from California to Bloomington, Illinois, where Lewis Stevenson managed farms owned by his aunt. Helen Stevenson, a stern disciplinarian, read to her children from the English classics, Greek mythology, the King James version of the Bible, and the works of Hawthorne. Lewis Stevenson traveled frequently, and the son envied his playmates who had close relationships with their fathers. There was considerable tension between his parents, and young Stevenson was often the peacemaker.
As a youth Stevenson had around him the history-makers of his own family, their friends, and the books, written records, and souvenirs of decades of American life. He once observed that as a result of his family's prominence, his horizons were expanded by "meeting famous people. " The Stevensons had Sunday dinner regularly at the home of Vice-President Stevenson.
Education
After attending schools in Bloomington, in 1916 he enrolled at the Choate School in Connecticut to prepare for Princeton University, which he entered in 1918. Although he was not an outstanding scholar, he particularly enjoyed history, English, and literature.
His greatest satisfaction was the three and a half years writing and editing for the Daily Princetonian. Stevenson's father insisted that Adlai attend law school. In 1922, after graduating from Princeton, he became a reluctant student at the Harvard Law School. Although he did not fail, at the end of the second year his standing was below the level of his class.
In 1925 he entered the Northwestern University Law School, spending weekends working on the Bloomington paper. In June of the next year he received his J. D.
Career
After a trip to the Soviet Union, in 1927 Stevenson became a law clerk in the conservative Republican law firm of Cutting, Moore and Sidley in Chicago. He became active in the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations and led a busy social life.
In July 1933, Stevenson went to Washington to work for the New Deal Agricultural Adjustment Administration. In January 1934, he became chief attorney of the newly created Federal Alcohol Control Administration and rejoined his Chicago law firm in October. In 1935 he was made a partner in the firm. That year he was also elected president of the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations.
Over the next years Stevenson developed a reputation for informed and eloquent speeches. Although his introductions of speakers at the council seemed spontaneous, in fact they had been written and rewritten until every word and sentence satisfied his increasingly exacting standards of style. Indeed, law and making money never interested him as much as public affairs.
Between 1934 and 1940, he served on the board of directors of Hull House, the Immigrants' Protective League, the Illinois Children's Home and Aid Society, and the Legislative Voters' League.
In June 1940, at the request of William Allen White, editor of the Emporia (Kansas) Gazette, and chairman of the newly organized Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies, Stevenson became chairman of the Chicago chapter. As head of this highly controversial committee, he became acquainted with a wide variety of people and further sharpened his writing and speaking style. Moreover, the experience increased his determination to be more active in public affairs.
In June 1941, Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox appointed Stevenson his principal attorney. During the next three years, Stevenson served as the secretary's speech writer and administrative assistant. He attended important meetings with him, and represented Knox and the navy on various interagency committees.
In late 1943 and early 1944, he headed a mission to Sicily and that part of Italy under allied control to study what role the Foreign Economic Administration should play in relief and rehabilitation. In June 1944, after the death of Secretary Knox, Stevenson returned to Chicago.
He tried to purchase control of the Chicago Daily News but was outbid. During November and December of that year he traveled to England and France with his former law associate George W. Ball, then with the Foreign Economic Administration, to study the effects of Allied bombing on the German war effort.
In February 1945, Archibald MacLeish, assistant secretary of state for public and cultural relations, lured Stevenson back to Washington. Stevenson became a special assistant to Secretary of State Edward R. Stettinius, Jr. His major task was to improve the public image of the Department of State. MacLeish and Stevenson launched a campaign to rally public support for the Dumbarton Oaks proposals that were the basis for the San Francisco conference on international organization opening in April 1945.
In May, Stevenson took charge of the press relations of the United States delegation at the San Francisco conference. The situation had become ludicrous because the delegates refused to allow Stettinius to speak for the delegation.
They frequently could not agree on statements to the press. Arthur Krock of the New York Times recommended that Stevenson be appointed to brief the press even though the delegation might repudiate his statements. Stevenson performed skillfully and won the respect not only of Stettinius and Republican Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg but of the news people as well.
In September 1945, Stevenson accompanied Stettinius to London as a member of the American delegation to the Preparatory Commission of the United Nations (UN). After Stettinius became ill, Stevenson headed the delegation.
When the first session of the General Assembly of the UN met in January 1946, Stevenson was appointed senior adviser to the United States delegation. He was an alternate delegate to the second session of the First General Assembly in the fall of 1946 and to the Second General Assembly in 1947, both at Lake Success, New York.
Between 1941 and 1947 Stevenson worked at the level of government just below the top, where much of the important work was done. He won the respect of such wartime leaders as President Franklin D. Roosevelt and General George C. Marshall. And he worked closely with many of the people who influenced United States policy in the immediate postwar years, including James F. Byrnes, Senator Vandenberg, Robert A. Lovett, John J. McCloy, Dean G. Acheson, and Eleanor Roosevelt.
In 1947 some of Stevenson's Chicago friends tried to win the support of the Cook County Democratic party for his candidacy to the U. S. Senate. Instead, Colonel Jacob M. Arvey, the leader of the Cook County organization, backed Stevenson for the governorship. Stevenson told Arvey that his experience was almost wholly with the federal government and foreign policy. When he asked whether he would be free on patronage appointments, Arvey stated that he would make no recommendations on major appointments but hoped that Stevenson would appoint Democrats to minor positions "if qualified. "
After thinking the offer over for a few days, Stevenson agreed to run.
When he was convinced of a position, he was decisive.
His associates in 1948, and later, complained that he spent far too much time on his writing. While he would nod in agreement, he had too much respect for literary quality, for the use of words in conveying his ideas, to do otherwise. Equally important, he was determined to be his own man, to present the real man, not a myth manufactured by ghosts and public relations manipulation. Stevenson won the election by 572, 067 votes, the largest margin in the history of Illinois. President Truman won the state by only 33, 612 votes.
Early in January 1952, Stevenson announced that he would seek reelection as governor. Three weeks later President Truman asked him to seek the presidential nomination. Stevenson refused, explaining that he wished to be reelected governor to continue his program. His refusal exasperated Truman, who could not conceive of anyone refusing to run with the backing of the incumbent president, and it laid the foundation for their future uneasy relationship. During the ensuing months, Stevenson was besieged by reporters, government officials, and party leaders.
Meanwhile a group of Chicagoans formed a Draft Stevenson Committee. But when the Democratic National Convention opened in Chicago in July, many party leaders had given up considering Stevenson. A draft to them required careful planning and a private agreement with the candidate to be drafted. Truman was now supporting Vice-President Alben W. Barkley. On the third ballot, Stevenson was drafted as the nominee because the convention wanted him and nobody else.
Stevenson then conducted a campaign that raised American political thinking to a high plane. His campaign speeches became best-selling books at home and abroad.
Despite these efforts, Stevenson was overwhelmed in the election by the popular war hero Dwight D. Eisenhower. During the next four years Stevenson prepared himself to serve as president. In March 1953, he left for Asia and the Middle East to observe at first hand the revolt against white, Western colonialism. While on this six-month trip, he wrote articles for Look magazine and in 1954 he published Call to Greatness.
On November 15, 1955, Stevenson announced that he would be a candidate for the 1956 Democratic nomination. After several bruising primary battles with Senator Estes Kefauver, he won the nomination. He then took the unprecedented step of calling on the convention to nominate the vice-presidential candidate without dictation from him. Kefauver was chosen following a spirited struggle with Senator John F. Kennedy. During this second presidential campaign, Stevenson raised issues that the Eisenhower administration had either ignored or handled inadequately.
With the creation of the council, the national party had an effective instrument to issue policy statements. Stevenson also continued his education by trips to Europe, Africa, the Soviet Union, and Latin America. In addition he was head of his own Chicago law firm and a member of the New York firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton and Garrison.
After Stevenson's second defeat, he announced he would not be a candidate for the nomination in 1960. As the convention approached, Senator Lyndon B. Johnson tried to persuade Stevenson to join a stop-Kennedy coalition. The Kennedy forces, meanwhile, wanted Stevenson to place the senator in nomination. Stevenson refused both overtures. He remained anchored firmly to his stated public and private position that he would not support any candidate.
An attempted draft by such Stevenson supporters as Eleanor Roosevelt and Senator Mike Monroney failed. After the convention, Stevenson campaigned for Kennedy, seeking to reassure those of his supporters who were unhappy with the senator's record. After Kennedy's victory, Stevenson hoped to be appointed secretary of state; instead, Kennedy offered him the ambassadorship to the UN. Stevenson accepted after Kennedy promised that he would hold cabinet rank and play a key role in policy formulation. Despite this assurance and a similar assurance from Lyndon Johnson when he succeeded Kennedy, Stevenson had limited influence on Washington decision-making while in the UN post.
He wanted the UN to be the center of United States foreign policy, but this concept was not acceptable to Washington. Stevenson ran up against the determined opposition of implacable cold warriors in both the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. People like Stevenson and Chester Bowles (undersecretary of state from January to November 1961) failed to persuade the government to rethink the assumptions of the cold war.
Repeated crises, which marked Stevenson's four and a half years at the UN, required almost constant negotiations on his part: the Bay of Pigs; the Cuban missile crisis; the UN forces in the Congo, on Cyprus, on the Egyptian-Israeli border, and in Kashmir; the death of Dag Hammarskj"ld followed by the Soviet "troika" proposal (three UN secretaries general); the near bankruptcy of the UN and the impasse over Article 19 of the charter, under which nations that did not pay their assessments were to be deprived of a vote in the General Assembly; the wrangle with Portugal over its unyielding control of African colonies; the question of admitting the People's Republic of China; white racism in Rhodesia and South Africa; and the quest for disarmament. The Bay of Pigs, among other events, illustrated President Kennedy's failure to consider Stevenson's views. When the decision to invade Cuba was made, Stevenson was not fully informed.
As a result, on April 15, 1961, when planes took off from Nicaragua to attack Cuban airfields, Stevenson told the UN they were Cuba's own planes flown by defectors. He presented the Central Intelligence Agency's cover story without knowing it was untrue. During the Cuban missile crisis in October 1962, he was consulted. At Kennedy's request he became a member of the missile question executive committee.
He recommended that the United States should negotiate the removal of all foreign bases from Cuba, including the United States base at Guantanamo. Kennedy, however, decided on a blockade of Cuba, and insisted that the Soviet missiles be removed. At the UN Stevenson negotiated with the Soviet ambassador and the missiles were removed. While these negotiations were taking place, Kennedy read in advance an article by Stewart Alsop and Charles L. Bartlett, "The White House in the Cuban Crisis, " Saturday Evening Post (Dec. 8, 1962), which quoted the president as telling the authors that "Adlai wanted a Munich. " After the article was published, Kennedy denied that he had talked to the two authors. Although President Johnson exhibited greater respect for Stevenson's views, he also excluded him from key decision-making. An important example was Vietnam.
On August 4, 1964, Secretary General of the UN U Thant proposed to Secretary of State Dean Rusk and Stevenson that leaders from Hanoi and Washington talk face to face in an effort to end the fighting. Through the Soviet government, he received a favorable response from Hanoi. In January 1965, Stevenson on his own asked U Thant to find out whether Burma would sponsor a meeting. After Burma agreed, Washington rejected the proposed meeting. U Thant next proposed a seven-nation meeting. Stevenson thought this a good idea and advised Johnson that the United States indicate its "readiness to explore the willingness of the Communists to accept a peaceful solution. " This recommendation was unacceptable to the president and the secretary of state. When Stevenson passed on another suggestion from U Thant in July, Rusk told him that negotiation was not the way to end the war.
A week later, while in London, Stevenson died of a heart attack.
Achievements
Adlai Ewing Stevenson II served in numerous positions in the federal government during the 1930s and 1940s, including the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA), Federal Alcohol Administration, United States Department of the Navy, and the United States Department of State.
He was the 31st Governor of Illinois from 1949 to 1953, and received the Democratic Party's nomination for president in the 1952 and 1956 elections. After his election, President Kennedy appointed Stevenson as the United States Ambassador to the United Nations. He served from 1961 until his death.
During the 1950's, Adlai Stevenson became the conscience of American politics, a moral and intellectual leader. In sensitive, witty, and thoughtful speeches he urged Americans to live up to their ideals.
He occasionally attended Presbyterian services in Libertyville, where a Unitarian church was not present, and as governor he became close friends with the Rev. Richard Graebel, the pastor of Springfield's Presbyterian church.
Politics
After Stevenson returned to the United States in August 1953, he devoted himself to rejuvenating the Democratic party. He attracted many young people to the party and played an important role in the successful campaign to elect a Democratic Congress in 1954. It was at this time that he referred to Vice-President Richard M. Nixon as "the white-collar McCarthy. "
During the campaign and after his defeat, Stevenson was dismayed at the failure of the mass media to probe to any significant degree the challenging issues facing the nation. Moreover, he felt that the Democratic congressional leadership had not produced a substantial record of achievement. As a result, in 1957 he became a prime mover in the founding of the Democratic Advisory Council and in its activities.
Views
He advocated the suspension of nuclear testing in the atmosphere; reduction of tensions with the Soviet Union; the end of the draft; increased assistance to underdeveloped countries through the UN in order to remove economic development from the cold war; substantial federal assistance to education, to the poor, to the elderly. He spoke of the pressing necessity of improved race relations, and he decried the destruction of natural resources for private profit.
Quotations:
On June 26, 1951, in vetoing a bill establishing an "antisubversive squad" to police the state, Stevenson wrote: " . .. we must fight traitors with laws. We already have the laws. We must fight falsehood and evil ideas with truth and better ideas. We have them in plenty. But we must not confuse the two. Laws infringing our rights and intimidating unoffending persons without enlarging our security will neither catch subversives nor win converts to our better ideas. And in the long run evil ideas can be counteracted and conquered not by law but only by better ideas. "
Stevenson's acceptance speech revealed what a formidable, literate man he was: "I hope and pray that we Democrats, win or lose, can campaign not as a crusade to exterminate the opposing party, as our opponents seem to prefer, but as a great opportunity to educate and elevate a people whose destiny is leadership, not alone of a rich and prosperous, contented country as in the past, but of a world in ferment. . .. Let's talk sense to the American people. . .. Better we lose the election than mislead the people. "
He observed during the campaign: "There is a great hunger among the people for moral leadership that remains unsatisfied. We have placed too much emphasis on materialism. Most political appeals have been appeals to the belly rather than to the spiritual, the intellectual, the moral and the educational. "
Membership
He was a member of the American Whig-Cliosophic Society, and a member of the Quadrangle Club.
Personality
Quotes from others about the person
James Reston of the New York Times wrote that Stevenson "tried to impose his own principles and conscience on American politics, " and the historian Henry Steele Commager stated: "He managed by sheer force of intelligence to lift the whole level of public life and discourse, and to infuse American politics with a dignity, a vitality, an excitement it had not known since the early days of the New Deal. "
Connections
On December 1, 1928, he married Ellen Borden, who was from an old Chicago family. Her father inherited wealth, increased it, and then lost it during the Great Depression. They had three sons, one of whom, Adlai E. Stevenson III, served as senator from Illinois from 1970 to 1981. The Stevensons were divorced in 1949.
